Keith Olbermann Rips Rubio for Comments in West Palm Beach

It might have been gentler if Keith Olbermann just said: "Marco Rubio, you're a little bitch." Olbermann, MSNBC's most outspoken political commentator, was ruthless in his message to Rubio last night, a response to remarks Rubio made yesterday during a speech in West Palm Beach. In a two-minute-long "Special Comment," Olbermann addressed Rubio directly, saying:

"Mr. Rubio, you have long behaved like a teenager who borrowed his father's suit. I think

Marco Rubio

you don't understand this country. I think you imperil this country. I think your stupidity is an indictment of the educational system in this country."

Olbermann's remarks, right in the middle of his seventh anniversary show, were a response to a joke Rubio said he got from Glenn Beck and told at a First Baptist Church in West Palm Beach, quoted in the Palm Beach Post.

"There are millions of people in America that hate our country, so why can't we just do a trade?" Rubio said. "We'll send you Sean Penn, Janeane Garofalo, and Keith Olbermann and you can send us people that actually love this country and want to help us build it."

In the same speech, Rubio praised the president's recent decision to allow offshore drilling, but Olbermann focused on the tea party-esque rhetoric:

"When you question whether I love this country, you have crossed a line," he said. "If you are elected to office, you will not in the slightest be representing, nor even defending, the people of your state who did not vote for you. And that, perhaps, is the greatest crime against this country of which any politician can be guilty."

I left a message with the Rubio campaign and will post his response as soon as possible.

Get the This Week's Top Stories Newsletter

Every week we collect the latest news, music and arts stories — along with film and food reviews and the best things to do this week — so that you’ll never miss New Times Broward-Palm Beach's biggest stories.